This will be a site to record my thoughts and musings as they occur. A 'vanity' blog or website. Postings will be sporadic as the nature of this site is not a conversation with others, but a monolog to help me in troubled times.
To Those who find good ideas, they are free for theft so long as attribution is given. They are to be *built upon* not used to demean and tear down. Ideas I present I do not declare to be *good* or *perfect* merely *better* or *different*.

06 March 2006

To those of you who believe the fair planet Earth, being the third in counting out from the star Sol, started around 4,500 BC (give or take a few days), a couple of things to think about.

First, cultures in India and Korea (to name but two) have records that accurately go back to 3,000 BC as living works with the understanding of how they were kept, much as the Jews did in recording their works which short Earth folks depend upon. So close to the supposed actual founding of the planet that one would think that their records would be clear on it. It definitely does not help your cause and, indeed, points to well distributed and established peoples picking up written record keeping soon after the invention of writing. And do note that if you disparage such peoples you do little honor upon yourself as the Koreans, as related to me by a native visiting our fair land, relates that theirs are *family* texts to record a whole series of begats and marriages and such that the short Earth texts do not have. Think of them as extended family bibles. Plus other, now dead cultures show like-wise with their written records.

Second, verbal record cultures, using bardic and similar traditions for oral recounting, have records that span back further than that. Two in particular, the Indigenous people of the Australian landmass and environs, and the Nordic folks who settled in and around Scandinavia and sent forth folks further across the ocean, both recount elder times that reflect a period on the Earth not recorded in those texts showing a 4,500 BC start, but do match up very well with known conditions in the near post-glacial period we are currently in. They each bespeak of the climate and forces at work during that period, though each in different climactic zones. The picture painted verbally matches up very well with what is known from geology and dispersion of species due to geographic isolation.

Third, taking the literal interpretation of those records used for the 4,500 BC start as a basis and hitting the deities' *reset button* with a flood, one would expect that even if the few survivors bred like bunnies we would see the effects of that limited genetic pool. Indeed genetic diseases and disorders instead of being rare would be the norm for such a thing. We do see this in socially isolated populations, such as European Royalty, in even the short span of a few hundred years. Putting more people out is not the problem, genetic diversity *is* the problem. Genetic diversity as it stands today, can only be explained through an understanding of how the human population moved and changed over a much longer time span. And even if those few *were* bunny-like in their promiscuity, the general population size from such a small staring group would still not account for the population extent as was present on the planet when records started to be kept.

Fourth, linguistically the alteration of languages through drift and other mechanisms is a well understood and documented concept. Words and how they are spoken change over time and that can be documented via linguistic analyses. These changes do require some time to happen and drift is a slow phenomenon usually attributed to slow pronounciation changes from the source language culture.

Fifth, species diversification after hitting the *reset button* at the flood would mean that there would be an even distribution of plant species so that we would not see isolation and island effects in such a short period of time as given. Instead we see a broad diversification of species that can only be attributed to long time periods of isolation from common ancesteral stock. This is even *more* important when considering molds, bacteria, single celled organisms and those that reproduce asexually. While they would drift faster they would all start with the same set of progenitors and see only minor diversification from their parent stock. Such is not the case.

Sixth, while I will not go into the details of siltation, time of particulate deposition and such other fun materials, I will say that, generally speaking, the Square-Cube law holds in force for sediment size and that, when in a water column, the smallest particles have the largest surface area and will stay in the column for quite some time. In a bit over 6,000 years things like silt would not even have time to get a decent deposition no matter how much water you put into the equation and, in point of fact, putting more water and turbulence IN to the system makes it much harder to deposit the stuff. So when I happen across a layer of siltstone that is lithified (ie. it is rock hard) one must take into consideration that the stuff must first *settle* then have enough overburden on it to force the water between the particles *out* and then bring alignment to particles each to the other via compaction so that something solid starts to take shape. This same problem is in spades for limestone, especially that formed by foraminifera as the deposition rate of their tiny shells is quite small, year on year, though steady. When looking at the limestone cliffs along the coast of Great Britain and seeing tens and tens and tens of feet of such rock, one begins to look seriously askance at a planet only started so recently as 4,500 BC. The uncompacted *living* mass to create that is huge and needs much time to settle out. And if you think *that* is a problem, then try to think of the chemical, non-biological deposition of limestone, which is even longer and needs much calmer and warmer waters than foraminifera, which are usually water column dwellers in the deep ocean.

Seventh is crystal formation. Let us just say that cooling of magma is, perforce, a long-term problem and when large crystalline structures are seen, as in the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, one must realize that crystal growth to that size takes a large amount of time *undisturbed* by uplift, floods and the such like. Similarly Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

Eight, the Scablands and similar features. They actually *do* record a large flood... well, unfortunately, MANY of them. The high water marks along the scablands match up well with the known water marks of the glacial lake in the Montana region that formed during glacial retreat. Formed many times as parts of the glacier would thrust forward, hold back meltwaters and the be undermined by them suddenly for large, local catastrophic floods. The large structures that are on the floor of the scablands and are made of boulders and cobbles and other such are *ripple marks* of those repeated floods. Something wholly and totally unaccounted for in those short Earth texts.

Ninth, even deposition of sedimentation if you include a deific flood reset. Not evident upon the planet. I have trod upon bare Canadian Shield which is the North American plate as it shows through in parts of Canada. This rock is continuous and extends down to the Moho region of the interface with the planetary mantle. Where, oh where, are the foot upon foot of muck and such left from the planetary creation and uplift of land and such or the post-flood depositions? And I have stood upon the deep loam of the lower states of the US, where year upon year of glacial windbrought dust and evenly deposited it upon the land. Water filters through it very easily due to how it was deposited and it has one feature that *no* water born deposit has in the form of soil: it will take a vertical square cut. Over years it will suffer erosion artifacts, but for some time it will keep a vertical cut as one cuts down through even and orderly lairs this dirt. Not sea born nor sea made sediment or normal terrestrial loaming process will create such. Only glacial winds and cold climate with a slow incursion of water and life will do so. Literally *no* other method works. And as developed topsoil is only some inches thick and one can see 50 feet or more of this stuff across broad expanses of the land, one begins to look seriously askance at a short Earth scenario.

Finally I will crib from James Burke and Connectionson this, a delightful program and wonderful way to view history. Let us take a lithified expanse of seashells in a stratigraphic column. The shells look ordinary except for the breakage and density of them and their depth in the column. One can chart its depth and changes over an area and it is well understood that this same layer moves downwards than upwards. All can be measured and checked. In the center of this measurement is another feature, called Mount Etna. *IT* is a volcano which has always been there as far as all records are kept, and as we have seen volcanoes take some time to build up. Etna's main pipe goes *through* the layer of lithified shells, thus making that layer *older* then the volcano.

You may have the pleasure of using any texts you want and any stories. What you are not allowed to do is have your own universe. We are stuck with physical laws and timely ways of things happening which take some time to do. Any other answer requiring deific intervention time and time again to set and correct things, to put special cases in place and to generally have the world conform to your view of it by extraordinary recourse is, unfortunately, putting forth a set of processes and characteristics that are not those of deity keeping to regular things and one that will not lie about things regularly. Those characteristics belong to *another* entirely. Now if you would like to claim *that* one as your deity and all-powerful, *then* I think we can make some headway. But that is not your argument, I believe, although I could be wrong.

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Trying to save what thoughts I have in case my time for having them comes to an end. I keep many ways of looking at the world and from many perspectives, but they are each a part of a larger whole and reflect my thoughts and feelings.
Diabetic, cataleptic, naracoleptic, hyperlipidemia, cerebral atrophy, allergies and *still* glad to be alive. Founding and sole member of The Jacksonian Party. mail: ajacksonian at gmail dot com

What D&D Character Am I?

Alignment:Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.